The Takayama Festival in Hida Takayama in Gifu, Japan is famous for its gorgeous floats called Yatai.
They have the festivals twice a year in spring and autumn, but the meanings and Yatais are different each time.
People can see the beautiful Yatai only once a year, which is a waste.
So to display these when the festival is not running, a museum called Yatai Kaikan was opened.
According to the leaflet, in Hida region, they used to send artisans to the capital city instead of paying tax for about 600 years.
You can see these artisans’ skills in the Yatais.
There are 23 Yatais left now and in the museum they show 4 of them at one time and exchange them three times a year.
I would like to see the actual festival once.
We could use the same ticket to the other museum called Sakurayama Nikko museum, so we went there, too without knowing anything.
And I was surprised to see a replica of the Nikko Toshogu shrine with the size of one tenth of the actual one (photo).
Apparently 33 artisans took 15 years to make this miniature during the Taisho Era (1912-1926).
This is amazing and definitely worth seeing.
Apparently this miniature was taken to the USA and exhibited around the country for a long time after the WW2 before coming back to Japan.
